Labor

Mexican Labor Shortage Opens Mining to Women

By Cristina Avila-Zesatti

WeNews correspondent

Friday, April 15, 2011

A male labor shortage in Mexico has opened the door for more women to join the country's mining industry. Despite widespread superstitions deterring women from entering mining, one industry official says their inclusion has been a total success.

ZACATECAS, Mexico (WOMENSENEWS)--Cony Solis, 26, an industrial engineer, is the only female administrator at the Penasquito mine in Zacatecas, a state in north-central Mexico with a long mining tradition. Many other women work down in the mines.

"Our presence has been growing in this industry," she says.

Solis says that 10 percent of the 3,000 employees in this deposit, where an enormous desert guards some 13 million ounces of gold, silver and zinc, are women. She calls her work a "labor conquest" because it took so long for women to be accepted into this traditionally male industry. She is a second-generation "mining woman," as her mother operates a giant truck at the mine.

The major reason the industry opened up to women is the male labor shortage in Mexico that has resulted from many men continuing to migrate to the United States in search of better wages and employment opportunities.

Mexico has become one of the largest exporters of labor in the world, according to the National Population Council.

Solis says that many of the women in mining today had fathers or brothers who also worked in the industry.

"But in many cases, those men went to United States and someone had to work and to maintain the family," she says.

Industry officials and employees also attribute women's inclusion in mining to new technology and industrial and personal protection systems, which have modernized Mexican and transnational mining businesses.

"Today, thanks to the machines and the professionalization, things are different," he says.

He says women are even working throughout the industry as geologists, engineers, researchers and executives.

Physically Trying Profession

Still, the mining industry remains one of the most physically trying of the labor professions, especially for mothers.

"In any case, the work is hard and here there are many mothers who have to leave their children to come to cover their shifts," says Solis, who, with an administrative position, is not subject to the same schedules as the operators.

Many companies make mining more viable for women by constructing "bedroom communities" or "dormitory towns" near the mining deposits, where workers stay for their 14 workdays of up to 15-hour shifts, followed by seven rest days. The "mining cities" also have basic and emergency services, such as a medical clinic, a doctor, ambulances and fire trucks.

A university graduate, Solis entered the mining industry by choice. But the majority of the mining women in Mexico – and in other Latin American countries – entered the industry because they had few other options to support their families. Nevertheless, their presence has prompted positive changes.

Mining is the third most important industry in Mexico, after petroleum and tourism, according to official sources. The number of employees in the mining industry has risen to almost 286,000, according to the Mexican Social Security Institute's latest data. Industry officials say they don't know how many of these workers are female, but that their numbers are undoubtedly increasing.

"There are some businesses that staff up to 40 percent of their plants with female personnel, and this is without a doubt increasing," Almazan says.

In Chile, Bolivia and Peru, local unions now represent more than 2,000 women. Various countries in Latin America also hold Women in Mining Congresses to discuss issues such as women's dual jobs in mines and at home as mothers and housewives. But Mexico has been slow to adapt in this respect.